Band:	Cytotoxin
Album:	Nuklearth
Style:	Brutal death metal
Release date:	August 2020

01. Atomb
02. Lupus Aurora
03. Uran Breath
04. Dominus
05. Drown In Havoc
06. Soul Harvester
07. Coast Of Lies
08. Quarantine Fortress
09. Dead Zone Anthem
10. Nuklearth
11. Mors Temporis

Leave it to the Germans to operate at peak efficiency.

While the amalgamation of brutality and technicality is far from innovative, the precision necessary for these elements to be successfully merged is not easily attained. Of course, where Cytotoxin are concerned, this is but a simple equation having been revealed to them nearly a full decade prior to the release of Nuklearth, with 2012's Radiophobia. Since then, they've become increasingly comfortable in their development, naturally progressing and carefully modifying nuanced aspects of their sound in order to best display their message of post-nuclear apocalyptic desolate chaos, neatly summed up in under 45 minutes of expertly crafted, otherworldly performed brutal death metal.

Featuring an absolute glut of musical references ranging from Gorguts to Cattle Decapitation, even traversing momentarily through Origin territory, this arpeggio-laden, harmonic-induced monument to fanatical creativity and quantum bomb explosiveness is a glowing example of where this genre needs to direct itself to maintain relevance as the extreme metal scene shifts paradigms toward accessibility through its continued incorporation of no longer foreign non-metal influence. Nuklearth never deviates from its initial trademark path of wanton destruction nor its true origins, but in doing so, manages to carry along with it the genre's expanding progressive attitude, attempting a painstakingly plotted kitchen-sink approach, and absolutely nailing it in unique fashion.

Unabashedly unashamed to stuff melody into every nook and cranny imaginable, Cytotoxin have at this point established themselves as reconstructive habitual abusers of the breakdown, rarely so complacent to let the monotonous chug and grind see more than seconds at a time without the accompaniment of sweeping melodies bursting onto the stage or the much welcomed inclusion of subtle bass guitar soloing to help string things along over a toxic terrain of rotting corpses and putrid waste. And the entire foundation for this lies within the inhuman drumming, which begs the question whether Stephan Stockburger has ever provided a blood sample or if that name is a newly designed AI drum program. Between the oddly timed cymbal play, vigorous double bass work, and groovy gravity blasts, you couldn't fathom writing software to execute these commands as perfectly. And though the production errs on the cleaner side of things, doing so allows for these intricacies to be appreciated to the fullest extent, and it isn't quite so squeaky that it feels plasticized.

To put it more directly, Nuklearth is a benchmark album that could, and should, mark a required pushing of the death metal envelope, alongside equally impressive masterworks of the year such as Defeated Sanity's The Sanguinary Impetus and Afterbirth's Four Dimensional Flesh.